Can’t Say Vagina – But I Could Show It

Maybe you have already seen the quick video I posted where I got #Uncorked about how Facebook flagged my video of my interview segment with @SusanGala as having profanity. For those who haven’t seen it, we were discussing, intellectually, vaginas.

That’s right, apparently even the mere use of the word Vagina is cause for shame and anger in some quarters. It’s a body part and we were discussing it as part of your body without any sexual overtones. And even if we did have sexual overtones, what is wrong with that? We need more pleasure in the world. It did make me wonder though – WHY is vagina a bad word?

vagina (n.) “sexual passage of the female from the vulva to the uterus,” 1680s, medical Latin, from specialized use of Latin vagina “sheath, scabbard, covering; sheath of an ear of grain, hull, husk” (plural vaginae)

Wow! According to that definition, my vagina is named a storehouse for weaponry? Where did it say weaponry? That’s kind of badass. But it still doesn’t explain why vagina is consider a “dirty” word to so many. If we look at the roots of the US, our founding forefathers were Puritans. According to their beliefs, all nudity outside of the context of sex is evil. They do not believe in innocent or sin free nudity (or reference) in any other context or conversation. This puritanical strain certainly seems to be what makes certain people cringe when the word is used, even in a clinical discussion. All of the sexual connotation and disgust are applied by individuals to the word vagina.

And yet – there are images all over social media sites, including Facebook, that show women and their body parts in almost all of their glory. The images are blatantly sexual, definitely demeaning and degrading but they are allowed to be posted.